Jon M@FlippingBinary@techhub.socialtechhub.social

Neat! #SQLite will support JSONB by the end of the year / with the next release https://sqlite.org/draft/releaselog/3_44_0.html

It is impossible to overstate the impact Molly had on the web. Without her work as part of the web standards movement I am convinced the web would be an utterly different place. If you work on the web today you might not have heard of Molly but your job is easier because of her. https://www.tucsonsentinel.com/local/report/090523_molly_holzschlag/tucsons-molly-holzschlag-known-as-the-fairy-godmother-web-dead-60/

The 98-year-old Kansas newspaper co-owner whose home was raided by police two days ago has died. http://marionrecord.com

International sales tax advice needed!

I have a tip jar for my accounts and websites ( @feditips, https://fedi.tips etc) which I mainly use to cover their costs. One of them is through ko-fi, the other is through liberapay. **Income tax is not an issue, I declare what I get to my country's government as part of my tax return.**

The problem I have is that my payment processor is now informing me I might (or might not) have to keep track of sales tax on donations:

-I'm not selling anything, there are no perks for donors. The services will happen regardless of whether anyone tips me.

-It would be incredibly complicated, it would mean registering with dozens of different countries.

-The total donations from each country are tiny, usually a few euros per year. The largest one is a few hundred per year.

-I'm not earning enough to have an accountant.

-I can't find any advice on this situation!

Can anyone help?

Mastodon is great, the only thing I miss on this app is quote posts. I know they have a bad rap bc of Twitter, but every major social network has this functionality for a reason (Tumblr, LinkedIn, Facebook, IG). As a journalist, I’d love to add commentary and amplify great info, build on ppl’s points, etc. You just can’t do that the same wait with replies! Is there any chance we might get them on here?

The Wikimedia Foundation, which serves as the non-profit host for #Wikipedia, @wikidata, @mediawiki, and other free knowledge projects, has joined the Fediverse as @wikimediafoundation - welcome!!

I'm very pleasantly surprised with #Svelte. Despite having never used it before and despite not having truly read the documentation, I'm making great progress at it.

It honestly makes #React look like #BloatedEnterpriseJava by comparison.

Chinese hackers targeted State and Commerce Department officials’ email accounts before Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s Beijing visit. Microsoft reported 25 organizations were targeted. US officials claim no sensitive info was accessed, but can we really be sure? Emails will contain non-public information, even if it's not classified information. #cybersecurity #hacking #China #US #politics

https://ground.news/article/chinese-hackers-breach-email-of-commerce-secretary-raimondo-and-state-department-officials_c7113e

The tax preparation companies that contemptuously broke the law by "sharing" people's private information with Google and Facebook should be shut down. And every dollar of profit they made should be sent to the taxpayers whose privacy they shredded.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/07/meta-wont-say-what-happened-to-taxpayer-data-it-may-have-illegally-collected/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_social-type=owned

When I say "should" I am of course recognizing that in America there is no accountability whatever for companies that do these crimes.

Ask your member of Congress why they don't care.

I think about this every time I SSH

Facebook is where you realize, you don’t like the people you know.

Mastodon is where you start liking people, you have never met.

WAIT WHAT?!
We are capable of pulling energy straight out of (humid) thin air now?!

"“To be frank, it was an accident,” says the study’s lead author, Prof Jun Yao. “We were actually interested in making a simple sensor for humidity in the air. But for whatever reason, the student who was working on that forgot to plug in the power.”

The UMass Amherst team were surprised to find that the device, which comprised an array of microscopic tubes, or nanowires, was producing an electrical signal regardless.

(...)

However, 20,000 of them stacked into a washing machine-sized cube, they say, could generate 10 kilowatt hours of energy a day – roughly the consumption of an average UK household. Even more impressive: they plan to have a prototype ready for demonstration in 2024."

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/jul/02/it-was-an-accident-the-scientists-who-have-turned-humid-air-into-renewable-power

This might help explain the spectacular launch of Threads

I have drank the #Svelte kool-aid, and I regret nothing

This one's quite a good watch if you would like to see some intermediate Rust, especially the first 10 minutes https://youtu.be/TFJaJjWOcr4

I read that #Meta has launched #Threads and many don't understand why it's not fully usable via the web but only through a dedicated mobile app. Meta isn't interested in letting us talk but rather in collecting as much data as possible. Browsers have become (more) skilled at protecting us, while apps can have almost complete access to our mobile devices, gathering data that an average person couldn't even imagine. And our mobile devices have become the safe (or should I say, the exposed pantry?) of our lives. #privacy #datacollection #SocialNetworks

Reminder: Many of the same corporations putting out July 4th tweets today also pay nothing in federal income taxes.

Hey journalists: want a fun story? Look up all the people who filed amacus briefs against student loan forgiveness and cross reference that with the PPP loan forgiveness database.

Well, looks like Reddit pulled the plug a little early. Apollo started crashing, but I just manually revoked my token and it looks like it fixes the crashing, but no more Reddit access haha. Those folks are fun to the very end!

Big Journalism's coverage of the wedding website ruling is missing a key element: the entire case is apparently built on lies if not outright fraud, as a single outlet -- the New Republic -- discovered at the last minute.

To acknowledge this, of course, would be to admit utter failure by news orgs (except one) to do even a tiny bit of due diligence.

And what about the plaintiff lawyers? Shouldn't there be sanctions at least in lower courts?

Not too late to do journalism on that, anyway.